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Use Drop Shipping to make money online

Have you ever wanted to own your own store and sell items to customers all over the world? Well starting an e-commerce store and drop shipping items is the answer you’ve been looking for and it can be one of the easiest ways to sell items and make money online!

Many of us have wanted to start-up a business and sell items to happy customers while making a nice profit. However, not all of us have the capital to start-up such a venture or the space to keep all that stock we intend to sell.

This is where drop shipping comes in. With drop shipping you get the chance to sell items without the burden of having to hold those items in stock.

Drop Shipping works as a fulfilment method, in which you run a website that lists the items for sale. You basically partner up with wholesalers who hold the stock in their warehouse and then using some advertising techniques to draw in leads, a customer visits the site and makes a purchase. As the drop shipper, you then forward the order details to the wholesaler and they will have the item/s shipped to the customer directly, while you keep a nice portion of the profits for yourself!

It’s very easy to get an e-commerce store started nowadays and just as easy to list the products. The most difficult thing about this method is driving customers to your site, but with a little bit of research into your potential customer base and some basic knowledge on advertising, it is more than possible to start a successful online business from home. Plus you can find multiple tutorials on places like YouTube, that will make this process easier for you.

The biggest advantages of Drop shipping are –

You can literally do this from nearly anywhere in the world that has access to the internet.

As there is normally such a low overhead to start this type of e-commerce business, you don’t need to worry about having massive start-up costs.

You don’t have to worry about fulfilment or holding any stock as this is all taken care of by the wholesaler.

Using the likes of white labelling (This is when the wholesaler agrees to label the products they hold with your distinctive brand name and logo) you can build a business completely personal to your own ideas.

Drop Shipping isn’t a new idea and the internet has many tutorials, groups and people all willing to offer their help and guidance freely!

So how do you start? There are sites like Shopify that offer a service to help you get started. With ready to go templates and how to guides, most anyone can start drop shipping. They also provide tools such as Oberlo, where you have a catalog of items that you can sell on your store. This tool allows you to select, manage and order items to be sent with little difficulty. Better yet, you can even try Shopify for 14 days and decide whether or not it’s for you!

There are some downsides which have to be considered when deciding if drop shipping is the right choice for you –

As you don’t hold the stock yourself, it can be hard to manage what you have in the wholesalers inventory to sell. Sometimes you can make a sale and find out later that the product isn’t in stock. This can usually be sorted though by contacting the customer, being genuine and offering an alternative.

It’s not always the most passive form of income to start with. You will most likely need to manually fulfil orders. As you get more experienced, you can turn to automation or even if you’re doing well, you could hire an assistant to help!

If you don’t have the physical stock of the items you choose to sell, you may never know the quality or have an attachment to selling it. It may be best to eventually purchase a few items for yourself to test the products out and see if you are providing your customers with a good deal.

The best chance of succeeding with drop shipping can be to have a welcoming website, a good advertising campaign and motivation to push pass the initial starting phase. Also bear in mind, you will be responsible for the customer service provided to your potential buyers and actual buyers, meaning you may have to deal with the odd complaint or return now and again.

As stated previously, although this method is not the most passive form of income, with some investment of your time and energy, this can turn into a great way to make money online.

Check out our recommended reading list for books that can help develop your skills and knowledge!

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